Shepherd's Whey Creamery

05/22/2026

Passing on this great article from Freshfarm

May 4, 2026
The Farmers Market Do’s and Don’ts Every Shopper Should Know

Feeling intimidated by the confident shoppers pushing their grocery trolleys through the farmers market? Don’t know a turnip from a kohlrabi? A recent Washington Post story offers some great tips on how to shop the farmers market like a pro, featuring insights from FRESHFARM Executive Director Cat Oakar and others, and images of our newly expanded Arlington farmers market.

As the operator of the largest farmers market network in the region, FRESHFARM has thoughts not covered in the story! After decades of ringing the opening bell, watching the seasons turn, and seeing every kind of shopper come through, we’ve learned a thing or two about what makes a great market experience (and what makes farmers cringe). Whether you’re a first-timer or a seasoned regular, here’s everything you need to know to make the most of this farmers market season.
Come prepared

The basics go a long way. Bring more reusable bags than you think you’ll need so you can avoid loading precious produce into flimsy plastic bags that might tear. It isn’t worth the risk! Tuck a few repurposed produce clamshells in your tote to protect delicate items like berries, stone fruit, and tomatoes. And while most farmers and producers accept cards, consider paying in cash. Every card swipe costs small businesses a fee. Small bills are especially appreciated, and exact change keeps the line moving.

If you want the best of what’s available, show up early before things sell out or get picked over. The first hour of market is when you’ll find the widest selection, the shortest lines, and your best shot at scoring seasonal firsts — like asparagus in spring, corn in early summer, or the hyper-fleeting treats like morels and pawpaws that may be available for just a few weeks.
Slow down and look around

Swing by the Market Info Tent and ask market staff what's new that day.
Resist the urge to grab and go. Do a full lap through the market to get the lay of the land before shopping. See what’s in, compare prices, and get a feel for who’s selling what. You might discover a new farmer, spot something you didn’t know was in season, or decide to build dinner around something you didn’t plan on, like a duck egg and asparagus frittata. You can also do a quick pit stop at the orange FRESHFARM Market Info Tent and ask market staff, the real farmers market insiders, for the scoop on what’s new or who’s popping up.
The dos

Talk to the farmers. This is, genuinely, the whole point. The person behind the table is often the one who grew or made what you’re about to buy. Ask what’s most delicious this week. Ask how to store it, how to cook it, and what’s coming in next. Great conversations follow, and you’ll leave knowing more than any recipe website could tell you.

Buy in bulk when it makes sense. Are you planning a canning project or want to stock your freezer for the winter? Ask about ordering a peck of tomatoes or a flat of strawberries in advance. This makes setup easier for the grower, who can then prepare your order in advance. Sometimes farmers offer deals on bulk purchases.

Pre-order when you can. If there’s a loaf from your favorite baker that always sells out, ask about placing an order (and paying) ahead of time. Many farmers and producers are happy to set things aside for a regular.

Bring the whole family. Farmers markets are one of the best places to teach kids where food comes from. Let them ask questions, smell things, and pick out something for dinner. You’ll be making memories and building values and knowledge that will stick long past the farmers market visits.

Put your phone away. Farmers markets are the ideal “third places”! Research from the Farmers Market Coalition found that people have 15 to 20 social interactions during a typical farmers market visit, compared to just one or two at a grocery store. That’s not a small thing. Those connections matter for your health and your community. Don’t scroll past them.
The don’ts

Don’t shop before the bell rings. Opening times exist for a reason. They give market staff, farmers, and producers time to set up and be prepared, leveling the playing field for everyone. Trying to shop before the opening bell is the farmers market equivalent of banging on a store’s locked door at 8:55am when it doesn’t open until 9:00am. Not a great look.

Don’t bargain. Farmers price their goods based on what it actually costs to grow, harvest, and haul everything to market. Prices are set and displayed accordingly. Farmers have no interest in haggling, and pressing the point will only make everyone uncomfortable.

Don’t complain about prices out loud. If something costs more than you expected, use your inside voice. Farmers operate on very slim margins, and a lot of work goes into every item in their stand. Prices reflect the true cost of what it takes to get food from farm to plate! Also worth noting: at peak season, you’ll often find that farmers market prices are competitive with — or cheaper than — the grocery store.

Don’t ask where the bananas are. Or you can ask! But be ready for a friendly explanation about local sourcing and why you won’t find tropical fruit, citrus, or other products not suited to our climate. The Mid-Atlantic grows an incredible variety of produce across the seasons, but it will never look exactly like a supermarket produce aisle.

Don’t rearrange pre-packed containers. If the pints are already packed, leave them as they are. If you’re looking for something specific — a bigger container, less bruising — just ask. The farmer will hook you up.

Don’t bring an anxious dog. Crowds, strange smells, lots of noise: markets can be a lot for sensitive animals. If you must bring yours, keep them on a tight leash, keep your visit short, and please, please make sure they don’t relieve themselves in any of the stalls. (Yes, it happens. No, it is not okay.)
Go with an open mind

The best farmers market trips aren’t the ones where you stick rigidly to a list. They’re the ones where you show up with curiosity and let the season guide you. Grab a copy of the What’s in Season Shopping List at the Market Info Tent, hang it on your fridge, and let it inspire you, but be ready for delicious surprises.

Farmers markets are more than produce. At many markets you can do a full shop, picking up seasonal produce, local honey, farmstead cheeses, grass-fed proteins, creamline milk, pastured eggs, artisan bread, small-batch kombucha and ferments, handmade pasta, freshly roasted coffees, heirloom flours, beans, and grains. The variety is remarkable, and everything is fresher than its supermarket counterpart. What’s more, by buying directly from the people who grew or made it, you’re shortening your supply chain, keeping your dollars circulating in the community, and helping to build a strong Mid-Atlantic food system.

So come hungry, come curious, and come ready to shake the hand that feeds you and make new friends.

05/16/2026

Beautiful morning to be at your local farmers market. You cn find us this morning to the Clarke County Farmers' Market and at the Leesburg Farmers Market with a full assortment of our artisan goat milk cheese. Seasonal Chevres this month re strawberry Rhubarb and Horseradish and Parsley

05/05/2026

What an amazing day! It began a bit chilly but evolved into a beautiful day. We would like to extend our gratitude to all the exceptional vendors who participated in the market and to the customers who shopped. Today's opening day witnessed the largest turnout of people coming to shop. If this is indicative of what the rest of the season will be like, it promises to be a successful one. The market is centered around bringing people together within the community.

If anyone got pictures or videos of the market please share and tag the market in it
We would love to see everyone's pictures or videos.

04/30/2026

We are excited to be in Berryville this Saturday for the Opening Day of the Clark Clarke County Farmers' Market

Vendor Highlight: Shepherd's Whey Creamery will be showcasing their outstanding goat cheese variety. Here is the lineup of what they will be bringing: Shepherd's Whey Creamery

Shepherd's Whey artisan goat milk cheeses for This coming weekend:

Chevre: We have two Seasonal Chevres for the month of May. Our sweet variety is “Rhuberry” – locally sourced rhubarb cooked down into a sauce and blended with strawberries and then mixed into our honey sweetened chevre. Perfect rolled in a crepe for a Mother’s Day Brunch or spread on French toast.

Our savory variety is “Horseradish and Parsley”: A blend of prepared and raw horseradish mixed into our chevre with fresh parsley. With just a bit of heat this chevre is delicious atop a baked potato or served with roast beef.

Routine Chevres: Basil, Black Pepper and Classic

Feta: Greek style Feta in quarter or half pound portions in the brine, aged in brine 2 months. First Place Feta at the 2019 ADGA National Goat Cheese competition

Bloomie Rinds: Napoleon's Peak - our Pyramid shaped ashed bloomy (my personal favorite of all our cheeses)

Snow Buttons - a cute little 1/4 pound patty of ashed bloomy - We will have them back at market this weekend!

Classic Camembert - a wheel of ooey gooey goodness. We are at the peak season for this bloomy rind – late season milk makes the cheese ripen with a thicker paste and a very approachable flavor.

Fresh Ricotta - Fresh Ricotta made fresh each Friday available in 1/3 pound tubs.

Aged Semi-hard cheeses: This week we will have:

Alpsiago – This Alpine style cheese has been living her best life in our underground aging caves for a full 14 months. Lovely texture, bits of sharp flavor crystals, great snacking cheese. This wheel was aged 19 months!

Caerphilly –A Welch cheddar – named after the town in Wales that developed this style of cheddar. Aged 9 months.

Crescendo! –This is our take on Manchego – white flesh juxtaposed against the chocolate brown rind makes this a really pretty cheese for your cheese board.

Goatgurt - a spoonable cultured treat with live active yogurt cultures

Goatgurt Smoothies: A gut healthy drinkable yogurt available in Strawberry, Apple Cinnamon and Vanilla

04/10/2026

Our final kidding of the season first freshening doe Mayflower blessed us with tiny triplet dealings.

04/01/2026

Shepherd's Whey Creamery will have this gorgeous colorful seasonal chevre for your Easter and Passover celebrations. Roasted Organic Beets (thanks New Morning Farm for these beauties), diced and sauteed in balsamic vinegar then blended into our chevre with fresh mint! Available at the creamery or you can find us Leesburg Farmers Market and Freshfarm Monroe Street Farmers Market this Saturday.

03/20/2026

One week to go!

03/18/2026

This article by Judy Schad of Capriole Goat Cheese published in March of 2024 gives some good insights in to the financial challenges of dairy goat farming and why goat cheese is more expensive than cheeses made with cows milk:

The Real Cost of Goat Cheese

Food costs, like utilities and fuel, impress us because they’re so frequently and in our faces at the pump and the checkout line. According to the Washington Post, “Grocery prices have jumped by 25% over the past four years, outpacing overall inflation of 19 percent during the same period”, and while inflation in the grocery aisles may slow, prices are not likely to go back down.

Labor, supply chain costs, and vagaries in climate & crop production have combined to affect every stage of the food chain, right down to the farmers who produce the food and, as always, are hit especially hard. Experiencing increased costs for animal feed, labor, fuel, and equipment, farm income does not keep pace, and in 2024 farm receipts are predicted to decrease by an additional 2%. Dairying is one of the most demanding areas of farming but dairy income shockingly lags behind the cost of producing milk. Annual farm milk prices are usually estimated in cwt. (equivalent to 100 lbs of milk). The average cwt. price paid for cow milk was $20-21 in 2011 and $16-17 cwt. mid-March 2024, making it understandable that with income loss has come farm foreclosures, hard economic times, a rise in the rate of death by su***de among farmers, and a migration out of rural communities.

Goat milk and goat milk cheeses are still definitely a niche market and information about commercial goat milk is scant and unreliable. A January 2022 article in American Dairyman reported the “average price per hundredweight of dairy goat milk was $37.91, with a range of $25 to $57.” Those prices are still largely the same in 2024. At Capriole, our base cost of delivered milk is $55-$60 cwt from March-October and $70-$75 cwt., November- February. That’s 3x or more the cost of cow milk. And it should be. While the costs of making goat vs cow artisanal cheeses may be more equal, the costs of making the milk are not. Goat and sheep milk are far more costly, and based on the following factors should be that much more expensive in order to be sustainable.
Labor costs

It requires approximately 9-10 productive goats to produce the same amount of milk as just one Holstein cow. That’s 9x the amount of daily labor to move goats in and out of pens and pastures when separated by age, stage of lactation, and breeding status. It also means more labor and time in and out of the milking parlor and spent on the record-keeping necessary to successfully manage herd health and productivity. Additionally, while labor costs for cow milk can be reduced with robotic milking and computer systems, these systems are not well-adapted and streamlined for goats. It’s still people, and not always dependable ones, getting that milk twice a day.
Space and facilities

For the 9 goats needed to equal that 1 Holstein, 4x the indoor barn space is required and almost twice as much rotational pasture. More land to maintain = more expenses.
Feed cost

A milking cow needs about 4% of their body weight in dry feed per day to produce milk. A goat needs only 1.5 to 2% of their bodyweight. However, based on the numbers of goats required it’s 3-4 x the amount of dry feed required for goats to equal the same amount of milk. And unfortunately, grain and hay costs have more than doubled in the past 5 years for both cow and goat milk producers.
Seasonal breeding

Goats are seasonal breeders, with a heat cycle in the fall and freshening (birthing) five months later. There are additional costs involved in getting these animals to breed out of season and provide milk year around, especially during fall and winter months when market demand is at its highest. While it’s difficult to assess the exact cost, it certainly means more cost to achieve year-round milk supply.
Government support

In the USA, the Dairy Price Support Program is a federal government program that maintains a minimum farm price for cow milk used in the manufacture of dairy products. Under this program, the USDA indirectly assures a minimum price for cow milk by purchasing any cheddar cheese, nonfat dry milk, and butter offered to it by dairy processors at stated prices set high enough to enable dairy processors to pay farmers at least the support price for the milk they use in manufacturing these products. There is no support price offered on goat milk.

It’s not hard to understand why all dairyman are struggling and why goat dairymen are barely surviving when their costs are many times greater than those of cow milk. Prices reflecting the differing cost of milks are not always reflected in the cheese case and are often very similar price points. In the end, this means that goat cheesemakers work for much smaller margins.

Don’t get us wrong, we love and enjoy many cow’s milk cheese. We just want our consumers to better understand these profit margins in an effort to sustain the future of goat cheese. Capriole sold our herd in 2012 in order to focus on cheesemaking. We currently buy our milk supply from Amish farmers in Indiana.
Judy Schad
March 25, 2024

03/18/2026

Love! One of Larks quintuplets with a perfect heart on her forehead